Expanding the Medicaid cut

Medicaid is gradually becoming a favorable healthcare insurance option for families under the Affordable Care Act. After years of coverage for pregnant women, children, and persons with disabilities, the law allowed eligibility for Medicaid for parents in the lower-income bracket or single adults with no kids.

The Medicaid expansion was one of the major provisions at stake in the ACA cases decided by the Supreme Court in June 2012. The Supreme Court upheld the Medicaid expansion, but limited the federal government's ability to penalize states that don't comply. Therefore, where it was originally mandatory for states to expand Medicaid, now it’s effectively optional.

While some states might not participate in the expansion given this decision, most states are predicted to eventually expand their programs. The CBO predicts that 11 million Americans will gain coverage by 2022 through this provision.

Medicaid’s recent expansion will no doubt require health care providers to improve their existing healthcare revenue cycle management systems. Any such improvement should help monitor a practice’s income by improving the efficiency with which it determines patient insurance eligibility, collects co-pays, and codes claims under the new healthcare system.

Eligibility experts can facilitate this transition and ensure that healthcare providers as well as their patients are properly covered under the new system.